


The Family of Things

by spikeface



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Theo Raeken, Depression, Dom Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), F/M, First Time, Ghosts, Good Alpha Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Hurt Theo Raeken, Love Languages, Lydia is the MVP, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Parental Issues, Past Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Pining, Praise Kink, Road Trip, Scalia erasure, Scott is a Good Friend, Stiles has grown emotionally, Sub Theo Raeken, Theo Raeken is doing his best to be a nice thing, Top Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Trauma, Trust Issues, Trust Kink, canon-typical horror and violence, dark themes, discussion of canonical character deaths, scott mccall deserves nice things, sk8er boy Theo, werewolf Urges and Instincts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:15:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28928637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikeface/pseuds/spikeface
Summary: In the summer before his sophomore year of college, Scott finds himself heading up the coast on a mission with Lydia and Stiles—and Theo.
Relationships: Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin & Theo Raeken, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall/Theo Raeken
Comments: 18
Kudos: 44
Collections: Sceo Secret Santa 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DemonzDust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonzDust/gifts).



> Happy very belated holidays, DemonzDust! This fic sort of got away from me, and wound up being a lot more Scott-centric than I intended. My plan was to incorporate a couple of different aspects of your prompts, and I think I have, but my biggest intention was to keep the focus on Theo and then all of my Scott feelings just kind of spilled over.
> 
> Additional notes:
> 
> For the purposes of this fic, Stiles and Lydia's relationship hasn't worked out, and they mention some reasons why, but this is not meant to be a comment on the ship as a whole. Ultimately, this fic is just about their love for each other being bigger than a relationship. I have also shamelessly ignored the canon Scott/Malia relationship, because I didn't want to deal with how underdeveloped I felt it was just for Sceo endgame. Again, if you ship Scott/Malia, this is not meant to be a comment on the viability of the ship itself, and its absence here is from laziness, not malice. This fic is meant to be positive about all of the characters and relationships it depicts, despite its angst.
> 
> Lastly, I hope this is obvious throughout, but I want to make it explicit that this is a pro-Scott fic. Scott thinks very negatively of himself at various points, but he's wrong! Scott is, in my opinion, a canny leader, a deeply empathetic friend, a smart and savvy student, and a traumatized young man doing his best in impossible circumstances.

You do not have to be good.  
You do not have to walk on your knees  
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.  
You only have to let the soft animal of your body  
love what it loves.  
Tell me about despair, yours, and I'll tell you mine.  
Meanwhile the world goes on.

— Mary Oliver, _Wild Geese_

Theo was waiting outside Derek's building when Scott showed up.

Scott was running late, driving Chris's oversized monster of an SUV that got twenty feet to the gallon, with his gym stuff in the backseat and shopping bags from the grocery and the hardware store all jumbled together in the trunk. He needed to charge his phone and one of his Tims was untied and he still had a bit of last-minute packing to do once they got back to his place.

Theo had a backpack. He sat with the stillness of a man who'd been ready and waiting for a while. He was wearing his prim white sneakers, the ones that never seemed to get dirty.

Or maybe they did. Not like Scott would know. It was hard to remember the last time he'd seen Theo one on one. Over the past academic year, while Scott had been away at UC Davis, Theo had reported via text on several different missions he'd done with Liam. Over the breaks, he'd lurked at the fringe of a few informal pack things. For the month he'd been home so far this summer, Scott hadn't seen him.

Only heard him, on his patrols, when he went by the skatepark, carefully out of sight and chimera hearing range, listening—too long—to the whir of Theo's board on the ground, the silence whenever he leapt through the air, disappeared to Scott's senses.

Theo looked good, like always. These days his hair was halfway between the squeaky clean polish of when he first showed up, and the tumbling not-quite-a-hairstyle he'd had by the time Scott left for Davis, a month before Malia had texted Scott out of the blue to ask whether he knew Theo was living in his truck.

Scott had not known.

He'd had to tamp down the urge to do a bunch of unproductive things then, like chewing out the Sheriff for definitely knowing and not telling him—and Stiles too, by the Stiles-law of syllogism that said Stiles knew whatever his dad knew—and charging back to Beacon Hills to demand Theo explain how he, a gifted manipulator, had weaseled his way back to his truck but not a home, and then, ultimately, doing something really stupid like inviting Theo to live with him the way he had with Isaac.

Only, of course, not like Isaac at all.

He'd gotten so agitated he'd eventually had to take the bike out for a long ride, patrolling around the perimeter of the county as if he could find everywhere that Theo had been and herd him in that way.

Dumb. 

In the end, he'd called Derek.

"You're serious," Derek had said, with his usual grim incredulity. "Him."

Scott had thought of ten thousand reasons to convince Derek to help, but Derek remained defensively ornery about long speeches meant to _convince_ him of anything, especially a cause. Ultimately, Scott had just gone right for the throat: " _Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes._ "

"You're kidding me. From what I've heard, the one thing he _can_ do is protect himself."

"Not if he's homeless."

Which Derek would remember. Because Derek had been homeless once, by choice, squatting in the burned-out husk of his old family home where hunters could attack at any time. Punishing himself.

Derek had said nothing.

"No one deserves that, Derek."

"Fine," Derek had snapped, very Derek-ly, and then hung up. 

But he'd followed through. In addition to giving Theo one of the apartments in the building he owned, he'd helped Theo find a job—some remote work having to do with archiving and translating obscure texts on different creatures—and enroll in some classes at Beacon Hills Community College for spring semester. These days, Derek responded to any texts about how Theo was doing with an infuriating _ask him urself_ , but Liam had filled in there, offering semi-regular if Liam-ish texts that Theo was _fine I guess_ , and also _a dickbag._

The drive from Derek's building to Scott's mom's place wasn't very long, but it felt much shorter than usual, over before Scott could really figure out what to say. 

Theo watched him grab his stuff from the back of the car with his usual wariness. He didn't offer to help carry anything, but then, Scott was always a bit relieved when Theo chose to be standoffish. It felt like evidence that he was trying to be more honest, same as how he kept his chemosignals tamped down instead of projecting that earnest, intoxicating, vaguely desperate want he had when he'd first showed up. It was unsettling, sometimes, to be around him and get nothing radiating out beyond the scrupulously clean body-smell of him, but it was comforting too, that Theo was being up front about his secretiveness.

A typical Theo-paradox.

Scott sent a quick text to Lydia that he'd picked up Theo as she'd requested, then unlocked the door to his mom's place and held it open.

Instead of coming in, Theo paused at the threshold. "You sure you want me to go?"

Scott was confused—he wanted Theo to _come in_ , hence the door-holding—before he realized he still hadn't said anything to Theo since picking him up.

God damn it.

"Oh, no, yeah, sorry, I definitely do, if you don't mind. Lydia's right; you'll be an asset."

Theo shrugged his coiled, uncomfortable shrug. "Not like I had plans to cancel."

Wearing loneliness like armor; Theo as usual.

Scott made himself put groceries away before he did something ill-advised.

It was only three bags worth. These days, Scott had his instincts under tight control, but he still had to consciously bat away the urge to do things like fill his mom's entire kitchen with food whenever he arrived or left, and check every door and window every night and morning to make sure the perimeter was secure. He also wanted very keenly to go into every room to make sure it smelled like him, and when both his mom and Chris were at home, he wanted to have them both in the same room together, ideally on the same couch, right next to him. 

It still frustrated him, sometimes, how hard and constantly he wanted these things, how _right_ the ideas felt, even when he knew on an intellectual level that they were overkill or unrealistic or just plain old silly.

That was something it had taken him a long time to figure out about being a werewolf. Especially at the beginning, it had felt like nothing was his own anymore—not his body or his thoughts or his life. But there was nothing else inside him wanting those things. They were all _Scott's_ desires, just turned up to a feral eleven, slanted by teeth and claws and the relentless moon.

But Scott couldn't buy groceries for three weeks just because he was leaving town for four days.

He couldn't.

The trip this weekend wasn't even too far: King Falls, Oregon, where a pack had offered to share some of their limited supply of yellow wolfsbane, the effects of which Deaton still wanted to study. The offer was too good to pass up, even though it was also good enough that they all worried about a trap. Petty pack protocols demanded that, as the Alpha, Scott go himself to pick it up. Three weeks ago, he'd asked Stiles and Lydia to go with him.

Their breakup had been months in the making—almost as long as they'd been together. Scott had gotten Stiles' side of it throughout, and even though Stiles had done an admirable job of not badmouthing Lydia to him, Scott was familiar with just how much tension went on behind the scenes with these things. 

Lydia hadn't talked to him at all about it. Or much of anything. Earlier in the year, Malia had mentioned in passing, with a Malia-look of defensive guilt on her face, that Lydia was talking to her about _Stiles stuff_ , but that she wouldn't be able to talk to him about it. Now, Lydia had been back in town for a week already and had still barely talked to him, except to tell him, two days ago, that she'd invited Theo to come on the trip as well, and that she'd handle the logistics about it—and Stiles.

Scott knew it was a good call. Monroe's people had turned to guerrilla tactics recently. It was what Scott had been waiting for—they were running low on supplies and morale, and they were fragmenting—but it meant that traveling was when they'd be most vulnerable. It was smart to have another person with advanced senses, strength, and healing, and Theo, experienced and adaptable, was a good choice for unknown terrain.

But.

It was Theo, first of all. If there was anyone Scott would find it difficult to spend four days in the car with, it'd be him.

But it was more than that. Even though it would be a dangerous mission, Scott had been looking forward to spending time with Stiles and Lydia together. Stiles had been doing an internship for most of June, so he'd only gotten back in town yesterday. Scott hadn't seen either of them in person yet. A road trip up the coast was the perfect opportunity to catch up with them, especially since the nature of Monroe's attacks these days meant there was safety in population. Rather than cheap, quiet, out of the way motels, they were going to stay in nice hotels full of guests.

Scott was certain that if he could just get them in the same place, the right moment would show up for him to get them to talk to each other and actually listen. Not to get back together, just to file down a few of the ragged edges they'd given each other. Stiles was soothed by things like road trips—movement, easy companionship, the chance to drive—and this way Lydia couldn't avoid Scott the way she seemed intent on doing. 

But they weren't going to open up with another person there. Normally, in a case like this Scott would have asked Malia, who was impressively unruffled by people lashing out under stress, or being asked to give them some space while they argued. In this fight, though, Malia—Stiles' ex, Lydia's confidante—would be a lot of pressure on everyone.

Scott had resolved not to take anyone else. To tough out any attacks on the convoy. To simply trust his friends, his pack, his own strength.

And then along came Theo.

Familiar.

"And you don't have to worry," Theo continued. "I'll be on my best behavior."

"I know that," Scott assured, as he finished up with the groceries. He knew Theo would try, though his survival instincts tended to war with his obsessive need to push people. Scott made himself admit, "It's, uh, not you I'm worried about."

That seemed safe enough. 

It wasn't that he didn't trust Theo, personally. He'd shown over and over that he'd changed, done nothing but be available to help for the past year, and that was after he'd helped with the Wild Hunt, and against Monroe's people when the war had been in Beacon Hills. But it was one thing for Scott to trust Theo himself, or for people like Liam to choose to let him in, and another for Scott to do it for them. With anyone else, Scott would be explaining what a weekend with a broken-up-Stiles-and-Lydia might mean. But that involved handing Theo some of their private weaknesses, and he couldn't imagine either of them would be okay with it. Even a generic "they're probably both going to be stressed" squirmed like disloyalty in his gut. Scott tried not to repeat his mistakes. 

"I'll stay out of their way," Theo was saying. "I know they're still… working on things, and I'm betting you wanted to talk to them on the trip."

"Yeah, something like that. Thanks." Scott hated how overwhelming the relief was, that Theo got it without Scott having to say it. He hated how much it reminded him of those precious few old days, when it seemed like Theo could read his mind, always knew what Scott needed without him having to ask.

Scott sighed.

In general, he tried not to be cruel, and he knew it was, asking Theo to come along and then shutting him out like this. Scott was leaning on the fact that Theo was forever trying to make a good impression, under the glass shield of his sarcasm, would put up with crap that no one else would—the pack Omega Scott swore he'd never have.

Theo pushing him to confront ugly truths about himself. Like always.

His phone pinged. Stiles and Lydia were ten minutes away.

Crap.

Probably enough time, still. 

"I'm gonna make a quick repair before Stiles and Lydia show. Help yourself to whatever." 

Scott grabbed the bag from the hardware store, along with a small vacuum and the toolbox he needed from the utility closet, and made for the cramped little laundry room. It was old habit, by now, to unscrew the top of the dryer, pop it off, squeeze behind the machine, and start taking the back of it off, even if he could never find a place for the tools. He set them awkwardly around the corner from the back of the dryer and groped for the screwdriver he needed to wrest the back open.

"You still have that thing?"

Theo had followed him over, lurked at the doorway to the laundry room. He was looking at the dryer.

"You… remember it?"

Scott tried not to sound too intent on the answer. Even when he'd been lying to all of them, Theo had rarely mentioned things from the time before he was taken by the Dread Doctors, to the point that now, Scott wasn't sure how much he actually remembered.

Theo shrugged stiffly. "It used to make a weird noise."

The dryer made ten thousand noises, along with many other signs of alarm—Stiles had called it "Old Unfaithful," for the mysterious steam it would sometimes send up when they'd poked at it—so it took Scott a second to put it together. 

There was one noise, a vibrating _tick tick clack_ , that sounded almost like the Dread Doctors.

Things like this were part of what made Scott careful to keep his distance.

Because Scott suddenly wanted to destroy the dryer, tear it apart with claws and teeth, slam it against the ground until it was nothing. He couldn't stand the idea of what happened: that Theo had come over to Scott's house, at most maybe ten years old, and been frightened of this fucking clanking thing, enough that he remembered it, even after everything.

The urge mawed through his guts, right up into his throat. He hated it.

He had no idea what to say.

His phone pinged. Five minutes away. Stiles was the one texting. He seemed excited, at least, hadn't mentioned Theo at all. Scott wondered what Lydia told him to keep him so mellow.

He needed to focus.

Theo had gone distracted. He was staring down the hallway outside the laundry room, his gaze uncharacteristically fixed instead of flitting. Scott paused in opening the dryer's back but couldn't hear or smell anything—couldn't even sense anything, in the way he'd gotten better at, werewolf senses picking up on some nebulous _wrong_.

The hallway Theo was looking at was empty, with nothing but a spare room at the end of it.

Beyond the usual heady body scent of him, Theo smelled like an intentional nothing.

"Everything all right?" Scott couldn't help asking anyway.

Theo turned back to him, looking startled, as if he'd forgotten Scott was there. He swallowed once. "Yes. I was just—thought I heard Lydia's car."

He stepped further into the room them—away from the hallway. Then, after an awkward moment, he rustled through the toolbox to hand Scott the wrench he was reaching for, even as he said, "This thing is really broken." 

"Yeah. That's why I'm fixing it," Scott couldn't resist teasing.

Theo made a face at that—a complicated twist of his eyebrows—but he held out his hand for the screws Scott had removed, took the old, decaying belt once Scott got it off the drum of the dryer, and handed him the new one. "Won't it just break again?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely." As always, Scott pinched his finger running the belt under the drum of the dryer as he put it on. He shook his hand out. "Also, it bites."

Theo handed him the hand vacuum, so Scott could get at the lint and dust build up. "Why not just get a new one? Argent can afford it."

Scott couldn't help smiling at that one. Chris had said the same thing, the first time he'd seen Scott repairing it. "It's got sentimental value."

The screws, when Theo gave them back, were warm from his hands. Scott tried not to think about it.

"Is there nothing you won't give up on?" Theo grumbled.

Scott was saved from having to answer by the sound of the front door slamming open.

"Honey," Stiles sing-songed, "I'm home!"

"Be right there!" Scott replaced the last of the screws, carefully moved the dryer back to where it was supposed to be—and then turned to find Theo still blocking the way, just enough that Scott couldn't leave without brushing into him.

Everything with Theo happened in flickers: a flash of surprise, like he hadn't meant to wind up in the way, and then a hardening of his features, that Theo rigidity that said he'd rather make someone throw him out than step aside on his own.

"Excuse me," Scott said mildly.

Theo smirked at him, Theo-like: sudden, teasing, a trap. "And if I don't?"

That was all it took, from him. Scott wanted, all at once and urgently, to throw him down on the ground. Keep him there.

Instead, Scott made himself simply raise his eyebrows. "This is your best behavior?"

The wrong thing to say. Theo did the worst thing he did, which was half-flutter his eyelids, his bravado broken, before averting his gaze and stepping back.

This was the man Scott wanted to throw to the floor.

He felt _sick_.

He ducked out quickly.

Luckily, Stiles was waiting at the doorway to wrap him in one of his back-slapping hugs, the kind he threw himself into and them almost immediately started to wriggle out of. But he smelled happy, and like _Stiles_ , and Scott had long since forced himself to admit that he liked to smell his friends, and smell like them.

"You almost ready to go? This is gonna be so awesome, Scotty, I made a playlist and I've mapped about fifty different— _oh_. Hey, Theo."

His tone was guarded.

Also, surprised.

When Scott pulled away, Stiles was giving him the eyebrows that meant _what's going on and how come no one's clued me in already?_

"Lydia didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Scott was embarrassed for having inadvertently ratted Lydia out—he'd rather not start another fight between her and Stiles—but on the other hand, what the fuck? Lydia had promised to handle this, and there was no way she'd forgotten. She'd just… what, bailed, and decided to let Scott pick up the pieces instead?

"Lydia asked me to come," Theo filled in, as he swung his backpack over his shoulder. To his credit, he didn't sound smug or inflammatory. "But if it's an issue, I don't have to."

Stiles turned to look back at the door—out towards the car, where Lydia was calmly opening the trunk and making room for more bags. He squinted.

"Oh, no," he said, his tone foreboding. "You're _definitely_ going."

+++

The playlist did not get played.

What happened instead was a song and dance Scott had heard before, if never from these two. Lydia stiffly pretended everything was fine while Stiles sat next to her in silence. Stiles only got quiet when he was really, truly furious, and it soaked into the car in a way that had Scott desperate to open a window—but Lydia preferred the air conditioner.

"How'd your spring semester classes go?" Lydia asked.

Scott tried to rally. "Fine, actually. Turns out chemistry's really easy when the teacher doesn't hate you and no one's trying to kill you."

"People _are_ trying to kill you," said Theo, sitting next to him in the back seat. He sounded amused.

What could Scott do but shrug? "Yeah, but not during chemistry."

Theo laughed.

Stiles' eye twitched.

"And I'm kind of way ahead with a lot of the veterinary stuff. Apparently, most vets don't have their high school sophomore interns handling broken bones."

Even after all this time, Deaton's eccentricities were usually a surefire Stiles-prompt. But all Stiles did was give Scott a look through the rearview mirror that said he knew exactly what Scott was trying to do and he wasn't about to fall for it.

Great.

Lydia asked him a bunch more questions about how things were going—things she could have known a while ago if she'd just been _talking_ to him. 

Then she started in on Theo.

That, at least, was more interesting. Between being at UC Davis and the general issue of Theo, Scott hadn't talked to him much outside of missions.

But when asked about his own classes, all Theo said was, "Also fine."

"You took a class with Malia, right?"

"And about two hundred other people."

"How'd that go?"

"She didn't kill me."

It was pretty obvious to Scott that Theo didn't like the interrogation, but Lydia wouldn't let up. "Do you think you'll want to transfer somewhere else? Your work will let you travel, right?"

For whatever reason, this question incensed Stiles, who whipped around in his seat and looked like he was literally biting his tongue in order not to say anything.

Lydia ignored him.

Theo was studying them both. "Not sure. Maybe. They don't offer any ancient languages at BHCC."

He glanced at Scott afterwards, obviously confused, but Scott had no idea.

The conversation petered out at that point as Lydia and Stiles had some sort of silent argument using subtle gestures and expressions.

Scott tried not to be frustrated.

Whatever it was came to a head when Lydia suggested they stop at a gas station, and Stiles finally broke his silence to be vehemently against it. They argued back and forth—talking only about the gas station, not talking about it at all—until they parked at the gas station and Stiles finally snapped, "Y'know, just because you're smarter than everyone, doesn't mean you know better than they do."

Lydia didn't respond, which was guaranteed to piss Stiles off.

Scott was still trying to think of something to say—anything, really—just to cut the tension, draw Stiles' attention away from whatever this was, when Theo asked, faux-innocently, "Isn't that what it literally means?"

Stiles whipped around in his seat to look at him.

Like always, it happened in the blink of an eye. 

Stiles' expression fell as he turned, and suddenly he was staring Theo with an abyssal blankness. 

Even now, years later, it still gave Scott a painful spasm in his gut.

Next to him, Theo looked taken aback, his pale eyes wide under the weight of Stiles' gaze.

Stiles tilted his head—alien, considering.

It was one of the rare times Scott would use his Alpha voice to order someone to do something. " _Stiles, get out of the car._ "

Stiles obeyed with an unsettling economy of movement.

Theo was bristling—nervous. "It was just a joke."

"Don't worry," said Lydia. "It's not your fault. It just happens."

Scott had thoughts about whose fault it was—there didn't seem to be any consistent trigger for it, but it happened more often when Stiles got really stressed out—but he kept them to himself as he asked Lydia, "The weird juice thing, if they have it, and unsweetened iced tea?"

"Please and thank you," said Lydia, already reaching for her lipstick to touch it up. 

Scott turned to Theo. "You want anything?"

Theo gestured to his bag. "I brought stuff."

"Chris is paying."

"Then… two protein bars and a water? Any brand is fine."

"Sure thing." It was a relief not to have to remind Theo, who was always wary, to keep his eyes and ears peeled while Scott was inside the gas station with Stiles. Even so, with Stiles still quiet at his side, Scott kept his ears tuned to the exterior of the gas station in addition to the inside—including, with only a little guilt, inside the car.

"He's being _sophomoric_ ," said Lydia, with a clarity of diction that said she'd like to rip Stiles in two.

Theo's voice was quieter. Teasing. "Well, he and Scott technically are sophomores, right?"

It was a good response. Lydia was heading for her junior year, rather than sophomore, having compressed her courses to finish in three years instead of four. She did like to have her talents recognized.

"It's from the Greek _sophos moros_ ," Lydia said archly.

"A 'wise fool.'"

"You know ancient Greek?"

Theo apparently did not, beyond some basic etymologies, but asked questions. The conversation turned into Lydia explaining the particulars of Greek dialects, which seemed safe-ish. Theo was the only other one in the pack who knew as many languages as Lydia did, if not the same ones, and even through the muffle of the car, he sounded genuinely interested.

Next to him, Stiles was having a straightforward time of it, thankfully. He didn't say anything, didn't even seem to see much, for all that he looked around with his strange pit of a gaze. By the time they'd gotten to the drinks display, he'd come back to himself. He startled, the way he always did when he'd moved while he'd been spaced out, so Scott walked him calmly through counting his fingers and reading a few labels of the drinks they picked up. Stiles grabbed a coffee, and then picked a werewolf-number of snacks.

He was always really hungry afterwards.

"Anything you want to talk about?" Scott asked, as he grabbed some food for himself, and compulsively scanned the interior and the exterior of the gas station again and tried to find a protein bar that looked like it tasted like anything but crumbly chalk.

No luck.

Scott gave in and grabbed a Twix bar in addition. Back in elementary school, Theo had almost always had one in his lunch bag, a luxury Scott had quietly envied—until Theo had started sharing, giving Scott one of the two sticks, always with a shy smile on his face.

"Not really." Stiles sighed, looking at two bags of chips like his life depended on making the right choice between them, before tossing them both in his bag with a face of disgust. "She just—she thinks these two— _things_ —are similar, but they're not. God, she thinks all of these things are similar, and they're not. It's just pareidolia. Parei-freaking-dolia. You need to know that she's wrong, okay? I know I've been trying not to drag you into any of the Lydia stuff, but she's wrong. Like, completely, utterly, totally wrong."

"Well, you haven't dragged me into it. I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"Ugh, I know. It's such a mess. This was gonna be such an epic trip, I swear to god. I had _plans_ , okay? Big plans."

"You always do." Scott felt a rush of affection for Stiles, even as he said, "She was right about Theo, though."

Stiles' gaze snapped over to him. "What? What about Theo?"

"It was smart to ask another shifter to come, and he's a good choice for a trip like this." Scott wasn't sure if Theo was listening, erred on the side of acting as if he was. "I know he wouldn't be your first choice, and I have no idea why she didn't talk to you about it when she told me she'd handle it—"

"Well, that one's easy. She knew the easiest way to get me to agree to have him go would be out of spite."

"Oh." Scott didn't like that. "That's not how I would've handled it."

"Tell me about it."

"She did make the right call about Theo, though. Honestly, it's the one I should have made."

Stiles did a complicated little wave as they headed for the register, eyes flicking over to the car. He knew Theo was probably listening too. "I know, I know. I just…"

He gave Scott that old Stiles-look, the one that said that all he wanted was for them to be best friends on adventures together forever with no complications. As it had been for a while, the look was tinged with resignation, near soft by this point. They both knew it wasn't possible, hadn't been since that one fateful, awful night in the woods. 

These days, they took what they could get—even a four-day trip under constant threat of attack.

They were still going on a trip together. 

It just would have been simpler without Theo.

"Yeah," said Scott, as they head back for the car. "I know."

+++

Back in the car, Scott distributed drinks and snacks and realized that, now that he'd bought it, he had to actually _give_ Theo the candy bar. He couldn't think of what to say.

 _Your request was too sad and bland_ was mean. 

_I remember you liked these when you were eight_ was creepy. 

_I want to feed you_ would make him sound like a werewolf serial killer.

"Here," said Scott, and hoped for the best.

Theo, unsurprisingly, looked suspicious. He did take it, but peered down at it with increasing concern, like the Twix was a question with a right answer and a wrong one. Finally, he opened it—then held it out to Scott, offering.

"It's for you." Scott didn't want him to think this was some sort of test of Theo's generosity.

Theo rolled his eyes. "Just take one already."

At this point it would have been rude not to, so Scott did. 

Theo picked apart the Twix just like he used to: first the chocolate and caramel off the top, and then the wafer. 

Scott needed to stop watching him eat.

In the front seat, Stiles sighed gustily, but whatever the fight had been with Lydia seemed to have blown over, for the moment. He was usually pretty wiped after an episode.

The rest of the drive was a little less fraught.

Until they got to the hotel.

+++

The original plan had been for them to have two rooms next to each other: one with a single bed, for Lydia, and another with two, for Stiles and Scott to share.

But in addition to not telling Stiles about Theo, Lydia also hadn't told the hotel about Theo. Their reservations were the same. Because they'd intentionally booked well-populated places to stay, the only other available room was on the other side of the hotel, and Scott didn't like the idea of having any of them out of hearing range.

"It's fine," declared Lydia. "Stiles will share with me, and Scott and Theo can take the double."

Stiles pantomimed a gesture, arms wide and abrupt, that Scott knew meant _of fucking course._

Scott was sort of feeling the same way.

It wasn't like he had any alternatives. It was what he'd suggest, given the space to do so. But the way Lydia did it grated on him: imperious, presumptive, seemingly without a thought for how anyone else would feel. She said she'd handle this.

Scott had to put a lot of energy into not sulking all through dinner, so busy being annoyed at her that the impact of the sleeping arrangements didn't hit him until he retired to his room and found Theo right behind him.

Their beds were three feet apart.

Again, Theo lingered awkwardly at the threshold. "I can sleep in the car, if you want."

" _No_ ," Scott said reflexively, absolutely hating the idea of Theo sleeping alone in a vehicle again, before realizing how he sounded. "I mean, do what you want, but there's no need to on my account. I'm annoyed at, uh, this situation, not you."

"I'll try harder, then," Theo responded dryly. "You want first shower?"

Scott waved him off. "All you."

In the room next to them, Stiles and Lydia were obviously arguing. Scott tried not to openly eavesdrop, but he'd learned it was much more difficult to deliberately not hear his pack members, especially when they were in a new space. And especially when Scott was stressed about them.

Not that it mattered. Stiles and Lydia had lived with werewolves too long not to know how to keep a secret from them. Scott could hear them texting each other rapidly.

So familiar, to be sitting in his bedroom, trying to decipher a fight from a wall away.

But there was nothing audible happening now, so Scott gave in and checked his phone. He had a separate app that always had noise notifications turned on for emergencies, and another messaging app he kept on silent because otherwise it would be pinging constantly, for other kinds of pack updates and messages. Tonight, there wasn't a ton going on: the usual rambling about idiots at the hospital from his mom, anxious questions from Liam, a string of research ideas from Mason, and a useful update from Isaac, who'd been looking into the Argents' checkered history in France for him. Ever since they'd discovered Kate's body but not Gerard's, they'd been waiting with bated breath for him to come back. Scott was determined to be prepared.

Nothing from Derek or Chris, but that tended to be a good sign.

Surprisingly, Malia had texted him: _how's it going?_

If anyone had a sense of what things were like right now with Stiles and Lydia, it was her. He was touched that she was checking in. _okay. thanks for asking. kind of weird but you know how it is._

_how's theo?_

Scott wondered, very uncharitably, how Lydia had found the time to tell Malia that Theo was coming, but not the hotel.

 _he's fine._ Scott waffled about adding anything else. In the past, praising Theo had only made the pack more defensive in criticizing him. Made him a target. But Theo really had been helpful, and he didn't want Malia to think otherwise. _it's helpful to be traveling with another shifter._

That seemed inoffensive enough, while also being true.

_he's been helpful in the past._

So frustrating. Any good thing Theo did got thrown back in his face; Theo's helpfulness was only a reminder of when he'd been pretending to be helpful. The worst part was that Scott could hardly argue. Theo had sold Malia out and shot her. It wasn't unreasonable for her to still not trust him or like him. Scott had found the best way to deescalate aggression against Theo was not to talk about him unless it was necessary.

But he couldn't resist responding: _yes. he has._

He changed the topic then, asked Malia about her most recent travels for the pack over the summer. 

It was almost enough to distract him from Theo showering fifteen feet away.

The chemical fragrance of the hotel's soap was strongest, but Scott couldn't help but smell Theo underneath it—his scent amplified under hot water, wafting out as steam filled the bathroom and trickled into the bedroom. Theo had brought a loofah, and Scott could hear the too-rough scrub of it, smell the newness it left behind all over. Theo took a while to wash—or maybe it just felt that way, Scott smelling and hearing and not thinking about the hot water pounding down on Theo's skin, sleeking lambent off of him, the tooth edge scrape of the loofah on his most vulnerable parts.

Scott was staring at nothing on his phone.

From beyond the wall, Stiles broke the silence: "But you can't just—people aren't _dolls_ , Lydia."

"Oh, that is _rich_ coming from you."

It was something to focus on, at least. Scott could guess the context; both Lydia and Stiles tended to think they knew best. Stiles was frustrated, enough to give up on texting for a second. He was losing whatever the argument was.

The shower turned off. 

Theo was out a too quick second later, his skin still red and abraded from the heat of the shower, the way he'd scrubbed at himself.

Scott focused on Stiles and Lydia, beyond the wall.

Nothing.

The hot wet skin smell of Theo filled the room. 

"You know, obsessing over them isn't going to make their breakup any easier," Theo said from his side of the room. He was sitting on his bed, now, still wearing nothing but a towel wrapped loosely around his hips.

Very loosely.

Even carefully not looking at him—looking anywhere but him—Scott could still see him, somehow, his broad chest and his narrow waist, the edge of his strong thighs peeking out from under his towel, his muscular calves and his fine-boned feet. He had one on the ground and the other ticking back and forth like a cat's tail.

Dangerous.

"Caring isn't obsessing." Scott concentrated very hard on his phone screen, on the sound of Stiles and Lydia: the irregular tap of their fingers on their phones as they went back to texting, their huffs and heartbeats.

Very, very hard.

Until Theo said, in that knowing, nipping, gutter-low voice, "I think what you need is a distraction."

True.

Incredibly true.

"I bet I could distract you."

Scott couldn't help looking over, then.

Caught.

For a second, he indulged in the fantasy: doing what he wanted, taking what he wanted, pretending it was all he wanted. Theo under him, heaving and helpless.

Then, as always, the wave of revulsion followed.

Even so, now that the thought was in Scott's head, it had grown claws, reached in and twisted.

His whole body was flushed.

Theo smelled so _good_. Scott was looking at him, now, helplessly, couldn't stop noticing that he had two moles on his chest. His skin looked so smooth, the redness from the way he'd scrubbed at himself fading, leaving only skin Scott knew would be suede soft under his palms. 

His lips. 

His teeth. 

He could see the shine in each blond hair on Theo's arms, his legs, the way his muscles were twitching all over, frenetic, like an animal getting ready to pounce, each tender vein on top of them, visible under his skin. Scott could count every leftover water droplet. He wanted to lick them. He wanted to _bite_.

Scott's eyes had gone Alpha sharp.

He needed to leave.

As often, Stiles saved him, his voice echoing through the wall: " _Fine_ , okay? Fine. You're right. Happy now? You want a fucking Fields Medal for that too?"

And then the sound of the door slamming, Stiles stomping down the hallway.

Scott leapt up at the opportunity. "Uh. Excuse me. Be back in a bit."

+++

He found Stiles by the parking lot, leaning against the side of the hotel. His arms were crossed. He was twitching. Scott made sure to scuff his Tims against the asphalt as he approached. Even these days, Stiles could startle pretty badly if someone snuck up on him.

The night air was cooler, now that they'd gone north, wetter with the faint smell of the ocean. The moon would be full three nights from now, so there was plenty of moonlight. Scott could hear dozens of people in the hotel, but the parking lot was quieter, without being exposed. It almost felt like safety.

It was nice, to stand here with Stiles, even amid everything, even with Stiles radiating pain and regret.

As always, Stiles filled the silence: "Man, you know what this makes me really fucking miss?"

Scott thought about how many nights he and Stiles had stood in a parking lot where no one could see them. "Smoking weed?"

"Smoking _weed_. Fucks with my paranoia these days, even when we're not being fucking hunted. God, remember when our biggest problem was how to look fourteen so Greenburg's shitty high horse dealer would sell to us?"

"Yeah, those were the days," Scott said dryly.

He was hoping to make Stiles laugh, but instead Stiles went morose. "Hey, you remember when we used to go out at night to skate?"

"Sure."

The two of them had only skated together for a little while, back in middle school. Even then, with Stiles it had always been more about getting into places where they _could_ skate more than _actually_ doing it. Stiles would come up with some elaborate scheme to break them into a skate park after dark, or to the top of a building, or some underground tunnels he'd found at the edge of the Preserve. 

Sometimes, they'd get in easy. Scott would practice the tricks he'd learned from Theo, and Stiles would mostly fall on his face.

More often, they'd spend hours skulking around in the dark, looking for the entrance to the tunnels or the door to the roof, and then arrive too exhausted to do anything but smoke old weed and tell each other increasingly dirty and stupid jokes.

Most often, Stiles' elaborate plan would fail spectacularly, and they'd give up and go play video games back at Scott's place because his mom had the night shift. 

Those had always been Scott's favorite nights. 

Stiles gave a little nod back towards the hotel—asking if Theo could hear them.

Scott could hear Theo and Lydia back in their rooms, but he was an Alpha. "We're good, I think." 

"I only started doing it because I knew you missed Theo."

Scott hadn't been expecting that one. "Oh. I know."

It had always been obvious to Scott that Stiles had been doing his Stiles-best to fill the void Theo had left, the same way Stiles had tried to fill every void: his own mother's absence, Scott's father's, the empty space of any room he walked into, silence itself. Scott had loved him for it, but skating had always felt vaguely more sacrilegious than the rest, as if Theo might show up any second with that shy expression of his, hurt that Scott had gone on without him. Out of loyalty, Scott had never ventured beyond the handful of tricks they'd learned together, so he'd at least be able to pick up where he'd left off if Theo ever came back.

So much for that.

"And I know the two of you were"—Stiles gestured, as if only movement would capture what he knew they'd been—"friends."

This was starting to sound like dangerous territory. Scott couldn't begrudge Stiles' lingering anger towards Theo, after what he'd done to him and _especially_ to his dad, but he didn't want to go digging into those particular wounds right now—not when it wasn't what Stiles was actually upset about at the moment. "Is that really what you want to talk about?"

Stiles made a small, pained noise.

Scott waited.

After a moment, Stiles said, very quiet, "I'm not very good at taking care of the people I love."

"Yes, you are."

Stiles turned to him.

Scott couldn't stand his expression. He remembered his mom sitting at the couch in front of the TV as they'd eaten their cheeseburgers, that same look of guilty despair on her face. "You took care of me for years. Life fulfilled, remember?"

Stiles made one of his cynical little noises. "Do you feel fulfilled, these days, Scotty?"

Scott was not remotely ready for that question. Not that it mattered; none of this was really about him anyway. "What are you, dude, an infomercial?"

"Act now and I'll throw in a free set of steak knives," Stiles quipped reliably.

Scott held up his claws. "Got one already."

Stiles laughed, smelled a little less brittle.

But then he said, "You know I love you, right? We're family."

"Of course I know that. I love you, too."

"And nothing's gonna change that. Not anything or… anyone."

Scott shifted his weight. Maybe this was about him after all. It would explain why Lydia had pulled so thoroughly away from him. "Have I… look, if I've been coming between you and Lydia, I can—"

"What? No, no— _no_."

But Scott could hear that that wasn't the whole truth.

Stiles caught his expression, ran a hand down his own face. "This isn't about Lydia, okay? Not really. It's about you. Not _about_ you—what I mean is—fuck, how am I so terrible at this? Scott, if there's anything you want to tell me you, I'll listen, okay? I'm trying to get better at listening. And not assuming. Or putting words in people's mouth. Or. I don't know. Generally being a catastrophe."

Stiles smelled like self-loathing.

Scott tried not to resent Lydia for it.

He bumped Stiles' shoulder. "Actually, there's something I've been meaning to tell you."

That got Stiles' attention. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. For a while now. And it's kinda difficult, so, promise you'll be cool?"

Stiles licked his lips. "Promise."

Scott took Stiles' shoulders.

He looked deeply into Stiles' eyes.

He said, "Stiles, I think I might be… a werewolf."

Stiles' scent went that lightning-like haywire it did when he didn't know what he was feeling, before he finally burst into laughter and shoved Scott's hands off him. "Dick."

The scent of hurt still lingered, under the laughter—old, sharp-edged—but it had eased, for the moment.

Scott tried to count that as a win.

But that meant that now he had to go back inside.

+++

Scott made sure his footsteps were silent, when he came back to the hotel room. Theo's steady heart made it sound like he was asleep.

When Scott opened the door, he found Theo sprawled out on his bed. The covers were pushed down his body, miles of smooth skin exposed to the air, to Scott's red-tinged gaze. His broad arms were splayed lax above his head, like someone had pinned them there.

Scott knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Theo was only pretending to be asleep.

He changed in the bathroom and climbed into bed in a shirt and shorts, even though it was too hot and made his skin itch, and then he lay down on his back and didn't pretend he was anything but wide awake. 

He counted his breaths and made himself lie very still. 

His fingertips were rigid, claws ready just under the skin. 

His mouth filled with saliva, anticipating fangs, with every heady inhale.

Only when Theo finally turned—so seamlessly as to be done in the depths of sleep—onto his side, back to the wall, curled into a more naturally defensive position, did Scott let himself relax.

+++

Scott dreamed, as he so often had before, of the underworld. 

Beneath him, instead of Liam, was Theo: wide-eyed, wounded. Heaving. Helpless.

Weapon in Scott's hands. 

Fangs in his mouth. 

Blood on his skin.

Monstrous, delirious, orgasmic violence.

 _Let me help you,_ said the Mute. _Let me show you how._


	2. Chapter 2

The attack came the next morning, soon after they'd hit Oregon. 

They were prepared. Attacks during a drive weren't unusual. It usually took Monroe's people about a day or two to come after them, and Oregon had much looser gun laws than California. It also had more werewolves per capita, which meant more fodder for Monroe's army of the aggrieved, people who'd lost loved ones to werewolves or thought they had.

"We're being followed," said Stiles, an hour into the morning drive.

They were on a quiet stretch of road, the kind hunters loved to haunt.

It was rote, by this point, for Scott to use his phone to find a rest stop with the right conditions—good cover, no traffic, one entrance and exit—and pull in, park the car where it would get decent cover from gunfire. Lydia and Stiles stayed by the car, while Theo followed Scott back down the road, where they could hide in the woods next to it and wait for the hunters to approach.

It was distracting.

Theo had been pointedly distant all morning. Scott had oscillated between annoyed and relieved, and annoyed that he was relieved—and relieved that he was annoyed, because it was much easier to focus on than remembering Theo sprawled nearly naked in the bedroom.

Now they were standing alone in the trees together, and Theo was very intently not looking at him, and Scott remembered— _I don't take rejection well_ —that he'd been the one to all but run out of the room with the thinnest of excuses instead of talking to Theo like a properly socialized person. This one was on him.

"Look, Theo, I'm sorry if—"

"It's just sex, Scott. You don't have to be so uptight about it."

"Okay." Scott breathed out through his nose. Tried to think of the right thing to say. "I just… don't really do casual stuff."

"Of course, god forbid Saint McCall have sex out of wedlock."

"That's—"

"You're really trying to tell me that you didn't want it?" Theo got closer, surly to predatory in one step, voice husky as he continued, "That you don't _still_ want it?"

In general, Scott tried not to lie.

He said nothing.

Theo stepped closer. "Come on. I see the way you look at me. Whatever you want to give me, it's not a fucking candy bar."

Scott couldn't help the hurt that flashed through him, knew Theo could probably smell it on him. "Now you're just being an ass."

Theo's lip curled, but that was his only reaction. Like always, his heartbeat was steady, his chemosignals closed off. "No one would have to know. Your little human friends are too busy with each other to notice, and it's not like they're going to smell it on you."

Theo was right next to him, now.

No Stiles to bail him out this time.

Luckily, there were people trying to kill him. Scott heard the hunters' car turn down the road. "Quiet."

"Oh, yeah? Or you'll—"

"I said be _quiet_." Scott tried to ignore the thrilling, sickening thrum in his gut as Theo obeyed, found himself clarifying awkwardly, "I can hear them coming."

Theo wasn't exactly gracious about it, but he'd always known how to focus. They threw down the caltrops right on time, puncturing the tires of the hunters' car. It swerved wildly and then stopped hard, the hunters predictably panicked as they got out. There were four of them, all armed—but with rifles, bad for a close quarters fight, and they were all disoriented and inexperienced.

And young.

So young. 

It was nothing new—had only gotten worse, as Monroe had gotten more and more desperate to raise troops—but it still hit Scott hard every time, had him more tired by the end of the fight than the minor scuffle warranted. They couldn't be older than eighteen. Four boys, all white, all furious—and completely unflinching, in a way only people who thought they had nothing to lose could be.

They had no idea how wrong they were. 

"We're not afraid of you," one of them said.

Scott felt even more tired. "I know."

"You're not gonna kill us, True Alpha."

Facts rarely swayed Monroe's followers, but there were some things that just got under Scott's skin. "No. Unlike your leader, I don't murder children."

" _Fuck_ you, I'm not a child."

"Do you want us to kill you?" Theo snapped. "Because not all of us are True Alphas."

Stiles and Lydia showed up, wearing gloves to avoid fingerprints. They got to work on taking the bullets out of the rifles. Some part of Scott was cheered, seeing them work together, seamless and on the same side again, even if it was for something as bleak as this.

The boys were clearly unnerved by seeing themselves so thoroughly disarmed, but they all quickly turned back to glare at Scott.

He needed to say something.

Scott had taken a course in cults his first semester, and done more reading on deprogramming, but building the necessary rapport took time, and that was the one thing they never had, even though this war had gone on for nearly a year. Scott couldn't hear anyone approaching, but there was always a chance strangers could choose to visit this particular rest stop at any time, and the boys would have back up trying to check in on them soon enough.

Still, nothing else to do but try.

He crouched down to where they were all sitting on the ground.

"Why are you fighting us?" Scott didn't bother to hide the pain in his voice. It made him sound naive, but that always got them talking, especially when they were young and angry like these four.

"Because we know what you fucking are," said the boy who seemed to have picked himself as their leader.

"And what am I?"

A tyrant. A monster. A liar. Scott got a lot of answers to this question.

"A failure," the boy spat.

Behind him, Theo went very still. Compulsively, Scott wanted to reach out and grasp his shoulder, but Theo was also holding himself a stiff distance away from Scott. And even if he weren't, Scott knew he wouldn't appreciate it—not in front of the enemy.

He needed to concentrate. From the sound of it, Monroe or someone close to her had talked to them. People fought for Monroe for all sorts of reasons, but this was hers, and she was good at drumming it into impressionable minds. 

This was always the hardest part. Scott didn't like talking people into traps—especially when they were just brainwashed kids—and he wasn't very good at it, but it was the best strategy he had so far. "What have I failed at?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

The goal was to get them to explain their beliefs. Expose their reasoning. Keep the ball in their court. Stay calm. Sound like an afterschool special. "I've never met you before in my life. How am I supposed to have failed you?"

"I know what you're doing and it's not gonna work. You think if you just look like a sad fucking dog, and ask us some dumb questions, we're gonna fall for your bullshit? Where the fuck were you when we needed you? When Monroe needed you? Fuck you."

Scott sighed.

They might as well have been speaking different languages.

He'd broken through walls like this one before, with some of Monroe's people, but only with a lot more time. At this point, he'd learned, the best thing he could do was leave communications open, but make sure they couldn't hurt anyone else in the meantime. 

"Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me." He turned to Lydia and Stiles. "We done here?"

With their tires blown, they at least wouldn't be able to follow them, though there might be others in the area.

"Actually," said Lydia, "these guns look expensive."

Scott didn't want to kill people, or even take prisoners, but he wasn't at all above hitting their supplies. Monroe was running low on money, too.

"Gonna rob us?" another of the boys taunted.

Stiles tossed Scott a pair of gloves, offered one to Theo as Scott put his on.

Theo glared. "What's happening?" 

"They can't shoot you if their gun is in two pieces. You wanna help or not?"

"No," said Theo, sounding irritated. "I can't snap through solid steel with my bare hands."

Stiles huffed, like Theo had personally chosen not to be able to do it solely to offend him. Then he narrowed his eyes at the weapons again, thoughtful. "Hey, Scott, can you break their guns at the barrel?"

"That doesn't stop them from being able to be shot."

"Not what I'm going for."

Scott had questions, but they didn't have a ton of time, and he trusted Stiles, especially when it came to clever solutions to their problems. He carefully punctured the glove with his claws, scored the barrel with them, and then snapped it off easily enough. Had the rest of them done in about a minute. "Now what?"

Stiles had collected the barrels, but not the guns themselves. "Now we leave."

They piled back into the car. Scott waited for Stiles to explain, but surprisingly, it was Theo who spoke up, "I can call in the tip. Got a burner app on my phone."

Scott expected an argument—out of pure Stiles-orneriness, if nothing else—but there wasn't one. Stiles couldn't seem to bring himself to actually agree verbally, but he made a complicated wave that could be interpreted as assent.

Theo promptly dialed what turned out to the police. His voice trembled convincingly as he reported that he just saw four guys—maybe more—in a car with sawed off shotguns. Somehow, he managed to make it sound both urgent and not especially dangerous, so the police would act quickly but not show up with their own guns blazing.

Scott was still confused. "The guns are almost definitely legal."

"Short barrel shotguns are categorically a felony in Oregon," Stiles finally explained. "Their prints are all over them, and it's not like they can say a werewolf just broke them off at the barrel. They'll get booked, and their friends will see what happens to people who follow Monroe. Either they get bailed out, which will cost them money, or they don't, which will make it look like Monroe doesn't back her own people up."

"It's also going to make them hate us even more."

"You can't save people from their own decisions," said Lydia. 

"They didn't decide to carry sawed off shotguns."

Stiles answered this time: "No, they were literally hunting us to kill us, which is a lot more serious than weapons possession. It's not wrong to want them off our backs. This way, no one gets hurt, and we play as much as we can by the rules of the justice system."

Scott felt like he should argue. Trapping kids into felonies would only cement their hatred for him, and potentially turn them into martyrs for the cause. But Stiles and Lydia were right, too. He hadn't put guns in their hands, and there was no doubt in his mind that they would have killed all of them if they'd somehow gotten the chance.

He just wished he'd had more time with them.

"Hey, switch with me?" Stiles asked, nodding at the wheel.

"No, you're good. It's still my turn."

"I know, but I'm antsy," said Stiles. "You can take a nap or something. If you want."

Scott wanted to pull his weight, but Stiles was clearly telling the truth, practically vibrating in his seat, the way he often was after a fight. Scott gave in, even though it involved pulling over and a fair bit of shuffling, since Lydia moved up front to stay next to Stiles, and Theo wordlessly followed Scott to the back, at Scott's left again.

But it was worth it. Scott sat down in the back and found he was exhausted, suddenly, grateful not to have to think about driving. He didn't want to sleep, in case there were more hunters—and after the dream he'd had last night—but he crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, let his eyelids drift half closed. 

He watched the trees go by.

Endless.

Blurred.

Too fast, too fast, too fast.

+++

They stopped for lunch.

Scott kept waiting to get used to the see-saw of his life, which had been tottering since he first had to run from a high school formal to a fight to the death. It had been almost four years and he hadn't yet.

A little while ago, there'd been a gun in his face.

Now there were sandwiches.

"Pick," said Stiles.

Scott took one, and Stiles kept the other. They headed over to where Lydia had set up at one of the picnic tables outside of the—much more populated, this time—rest stop they'd parked at. 

The sun was shining. The trees were fragrant.

"I followed up about Monroe's people," said Stiles, which meant he'd hacked a police radio. "By the time the police came, those idiots still had their guns, and they'd had backup arrive with more, and they all freaked out when the cops showed up. Everyone wound up booked for threatening an officer, with weapons charges for some as a nice little icing on the cake. Not sure how far any of it will go, but it should mean the coast is clear for at least a little while."

"Good."

"And I don't know about you," Stiles continued, with an old Stiles-look that meant he was trying to be comforting, "but that seemed pretty reactionary to me. I don't think any of them knew we were coming."

One of their concerns had been that the promise of the yellow wolfsbane might be a trap set by Monroe to lure Scott out, far away from the rest of his pack and the local friends and allies he'd made in southern California. The pack that had contacted them, led by a man named Logan Cooper, was one Derek had distantly remembered as one his mother had known, but that had been when it had been led by Cooper's father—a connection just close enough that the offer could be real, just far enough that it could be fake. The fact that Monroe's forces hadn't seemed to have anticipated them leaving pointed to it being a real offer. 

"Unless that's what she wants us to think," Theo countered.

Stiles stiffened. 

Scott couldn't help doing the same. These days, Stiles tried not to give in to his paranoia; he'd thought about this possibility, along with a dozen others, and was actively trying not to voice it. Scott could see on Stiles' face that he wasn't about to thank Theo for bringing it up anyway.

Theo scowled at Stiles' hard gaze, annoyed and, underneath that, clearly confused. Scott wanted to butt in—he was sure Theo had been trying to be helpful—but it would only tangle things worse. Stiles had gotten twitchy, in the past, at the thought of Scott trusting or defending Theo. Again.

But Stiles, to his credit, only stared at Theo narrow-eyed and said nothing. 

It was progress.

Scott seized the opportunity. "No one's getting complacent, but we don't need to anticipate trouble before it happens. We're making good time, and most of the rest of the drive today should be less isolated."

Lydia launched into a detailed discussion of the relationship between the Oregon road system and algorithms which Scott didn't find all that interesting.

But the moment passed. 

The rest of lunch was quiet. Scott kept up a steady scan of the rest stop—listening for the heft of hunter boots, the smell of gunpowder or wolfsbane—but it was hard to hear anything over the sound of families chatting with each other, little kids running around in the sun. He wished he didn't have to tune them out.

Lunch was over before he knew it. Stiles had to shake him to get his attention back to the table, where they were all cleaning up sandwich wrappers and gathering empty bottles for the recycling.

Theo was already walking away, but Stiles and Lydia were looking at him.

"Did I miss something?"

"You can't save everyone, Scott," said Lydia. "It's basic statistics. Everything has a margin of error."

Scott tried not to sound defensive. "I know."

He did know. But that didn't make it any easier to hear, especially the way Lydia said it: sorrowful but authoritative, like she had decades of experience on him. 

"Not everyone finds math comforting, Lydia," said Stiles, with an edge in his voice.

Scott braced himself for the argument they'd been quietly having to finally spill out into the open, but Lydia only looked at Stiles coolly and walked off. 

_You look at it logically,_ his father had said. _Without emotion. You compartmentalize._

Scott had never been great at compartmentalizing.

+++

They stopped again, in the middle of the afternoon, to stretch their legs, use the bathroom. The only rest stop nearby was tiny, a men's and women's bathroom on either side of an open hallway, and a few picnic tables next to it. Scott could smell a vending machine on the other side of the building.

Scott was done first, waited by the car. He concentrated very hard on keeping his senses peeled for potential threats from out in the looming trees surrounding the rest stop. That was easier than thinking about anything else: about Stiles and Lydia arguing with each other, about Theo ignoring him, about kids who got swept up in the insane causes of adults and paid and paid and paid for it.

Theo came out of the bathroom. He started down the hallway, back towards Scott and the car.

Then he froze—stared straight ahead of him, eyes widening slightly, his attention as fixed and still as it had been back in Scott's house. 

Scott tensed, but just like before, he couldn't pick up any threat. After that brief startled moment, Theo looked behind him, as if he might have forgotten something. He turned around awkwardly, headed down the hallway in the other direction, and then disappeared. Mystified, Scott listened, but heard only Theo's usual measured tread as he inexplicably walked along the far side of the building.

Then he stopped.

After a moment, Scott heard the clank of the vending machine.

Oh.

When Theo reappeared a minute later, having gone the long way, around the outside of the building, he tossed something to Scott.

It was a KitKat.

"They were out of Twix," said Theo, sounding vaguely abashed. He came to lean against the car next to Scott. Close but not aggressive. Scott was relieved. And wanted him closer.

He settled for offering him a KitKat.

"You don't owe me anything."

For once Scott knew what to say. "Just take one already."

Theo snorted.

He ate all the chocolate around the wafer, and then pulled the wafers apart one by one.

Scott made himself look back out at the trees.

They seemed a little less foreboding, now. Scott knew a gesture when he saw one; a KitKat was as good an apology as any.

"You… know you're not a failure, right?" Theo asked, after a moment.

Scott considered.

He did know he wasn't a failure, because no one categorically was. Binaries like that belonged to fanatics: Matt, Monroe, Deucalion, the Dread Doctors. Guilty. Failure. Perfect. Success. The truth was that nothing was ever that simple. This morning, Scott had succeeded in stopping a threat to his pack, and he'd failed in saving four angry boys from Monroe's poison. Stiles had played the justice system, but he'd done it to save as many people as he could.

And now, Theo was using the language of the Dread Doctors, but he was doing it to be kind. He'd changed so much, even without the support of most of the pack, when Scott barely knew what to say to him. 

Maybe there was hope for Monroe's victims.

"I know," said Scott. "And thanks, by the way. That was good work with the phone call."

"I'm sure the president will call any day now to give me the medal of honor for it," drawled Theo, but he was smiling now, small but real, no meanness in it. The tension he'd been carrying ever since Monroe's followers had said the word "failure" had disappeared.

Theo had a really nice smile.

Scott needed to stop thinking about it before he did something hopelessly dumb, like shower Theo with praise.

But it was easier, after that, to pile back into the car. Scott offered to drive again. 

He wasn't feeling so worn.

+++

Despite his best intentions, Scott got complacent.

The afternoon and evening had been lulling. Today's drive was a long one, would leave them at a hotel relatively close to Cooper's pack, though out of what he seemed to consider his official territory in case things went south. Pushing through today meant less driving tomorrow, so they'd show up sharp and ready. They'd stopped for dinner a couple of hours ago at a surprisingly nice diner on the road. Scott had handed over the driving to Lydia afterwards.

She and Stiles had been quiet, but it seemed like a real quiet, not the veiled argument the two of them had been silently having. Theo was too far and too close like always, with only the empty middle seat between them, the uncrossable expanse of it, but at least he'd seemed more relaxed than before, distant but not keeping his distance, his heart peaceable. Scott was curled up in the backseat not with the drowning exhaustion of before but an easier kind of tired, the kind he got when he was in a small space with his pack and he could smell all of them and their heartbeats cuddled up in his ears. It made Scott have to fight off sleep, and he hadn't been fighting as hard as he should. 

The moon rose, waxing fat and numinous.

Then Theo said, out of nowhere, "That wasn't the right turn."

In the front seat, Stiles startled, turned from the window to the GPS, which was already silently suggesting an alternate route to get them back on track.

"This is the right way," said Lydia. Her tone was dreamy.

Fuck.

Scott rolled down the window and smelled it in seconds.

There was a dead body nearby.

Stiles was swearing under his breath, shaking Lydia by the shoulder. "Hey, _hey_ , Lydia, Earth to—Lydia, we need to turn around."

The scent was strong enough now that even if they'd been back on the highway, with the windows rolled up, Scott would still have smelled it.

And mountain ash.

"We'll be there soon," said Lydia.

She was already slowing, turning off onto a narrow road next to a sign that declared it was "Private Property."

The scent was overwhelming.

Scott could hear more heartbeats. Smell wolfsbane.

It was a trap.

+++

The dead person was by the side of the road, next to a small clearing, maybe twenty feet from the turn off. He'd been a young man, eighteen at the most when he'd been killed, with light brown skin and wavy dark hair. He lay sprawled on his back, arms out loosely to either side, his entire body surrounded by a line of mountain ash.

Deep claw marks jagged through the center of his chest.

Right.

There were three hunters in the clearing. Waiting for them.

Stiles was out of the car before it'd even stopped moving, bat in hand, charging at the hunters. 

"Stiles!" Scott yelled, heard Lydia do the same from the front seat, as they both scrambled out of the car after him. Scott's senses were on overdrive: no one else besides these three hunters, no guns or bullets, only wolfsbane on slick metal, like a knife. Dirt. Trees. A herd of deer, much deeper in the woods. Helplessly, Scott remembered the night he'd been bitten—but there was only him, this time. He was the Alpha in the woods.

There was a car nearby, the engine running but no one inside.

Gunpowder inside dead flesh, planted.

Theo was standing just outside the car. He was staring at the body. His breath was shallow.

Lydia screamed—a practiced vibration by this point, near soundless, right at the hunters. They were dazed by the time Stiles reached them, two still standing and one on the ground. Stiles whacked the two standing on the head, one and then the other. They dropped, alive but unconscious.

Stiles raised his bat at the third, who was still on the ground, unmoving on his back. Surrendering.

"Stiles," Scott repeated. 

Stiles paused with the bat. Let it down slowly. Scott could hear how hard he was panting.

The conscious hunter didn't move. 

It had all happened in seconds.

Scott took a breath. Tried to orient himself. Lydia was at his side, primed and ready, all traces of her banshee fugue gone. Stiles was still standing next to the conscious hunter, twisting his hands back and forth over his grip on the bat. Lydia and Stiles' hearts were pounding, breath rattling through their lungs. Fury clouded around them.

Theo was still behind Scott, though closer than he'd been before. He still smelled walled off. His heart rate was calm. 

Calming.

Scott took another deep breath. "No one touch the body."

He needed to focus. This was a moment he'd been waiting for, awful as it was. Nothing about this set up was surprising, not even the horrible, inescapable trap of the dead boy, whom Scott or his friends would either be lured to touch, setting off what smelled like the bomb inside it, or forced to abandon. The hunters were all seasoned, experienced, the opposite of Monroe's boys. None of them had guns because they'd been told that Scott wouldn't even really hurt them if they didn't threaten him or his pack. They weren't here to kill anyone, either. They were here to send a message.

All of it was a message, sharp and familiar as a knife in the gut.

But it was one Scott had had ample time to consider his response to. He was prepared.

He crouched down so he could look the hunter level in the eye, made his voice even. "What's your name?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Oh, well, pleasure's all ours, Go Fuck Yourself," Stiles sneered.

Scott used the man's distraction to take his wallet out of his pocket.

Gregory Thwaite.

He offered the wallet back. "And what was his name?"

"Dead when I got to it."

Scott had to clench his jaw before he could answer. "That's a kid you're using as bait, Gregory."

This part wasn't planned. And it was pointless. Scott knew that. Usually, he avoided this kind of lecturing, because it was never what reached hunters, and it only made his True Alpha bullshit reputation worse.

But it was either that or rip the man's throat out with his teeth. Scott settled for the lesser of two evils.

"Dead dog, more like."

"Why do you people always say that like it's acceptable then?" Lydia replied this time. "Are you somehow unaware of the concept of animal cruelty?"

Thwaite ignored her—his focus predator-steady on Scott.

"You know, I heard a story once, about a man's father, who shot a rabid dog," Scott began. 

Thwaite appeared to be listening. Probably not taking it in.

But then, the story wasn't for him.

"The man who told it to me wanted me to be impressed, I think—that shooting the dog had been hard, but the right thing to do. But there's been a vaccine for rabies since 1885. At the end of the day, that story was just about irresponsible dog ownership."

"You—"

"I'm not finished. I actually agree that some dogs have to be put down. Sometimes, it's because they're dangerous, but most times? It's because they're very sick, or they're very, very old. Their time is up. And when that happens, I don't shoot them. I get the right dose of pentobarbital, and I give them their medicine."

To his credit, Thwaite gave him nothing but a hard-eyed glare. "Gonna kill me, _animal_ doctor?"

"Of course not." Scott stood. "Just sending a message."

"To Monroe," said Thwaite. Testing.

The other two hunters started to stir.

Scott made himself shrug. He kept his fangs hidden. "If you say so."

They watched as the hunters limped off, their backs turned. Scott wanted to tear them all apart, crush their bones in his jaws and rip their flesh off with his claws.

But he didn't.

He couldn't help a buzz of excitement. It wasn't just that they'd been waiting for Gerard to show his face for a year now. He was the straw that would break the last of the Monroe's forces. Gerard was striking at Scott with this sick display, but he'd be making his triumphant return to Monroe too, with promises of loyal hunting troops he could bring with him, along with his expertise. Gerard couldn't stand someone else being in charge in more than the most superficial of ways, but Monroe had gotten confident in his absence. She wouldn't be his protege anymore. They might pretend to work together, but they'd go after each other, in the end. Gerard always did.

He was more dangerous than Monroe. He'd always been their most dangerous enemy: ruthless, measured, tenacious. But Scott would take him over Monroe any day. Monroe's vendetta against him had always been bound up in her expectations for a savior. She was on a mission, not waging a war. Scott wasn't a person, to her, just an icon.

Gerard just plain old hated him. He'd never cared that Scott was a True Alpha or a hero or whatever he was supposed to be, had no expectations about it. 

It was sick--Scott knew that--but sometimes he felt like Gerard was the only one who understood him, deep down.

Stiles cut the silence: "You'd still know?"

Scott got what he was asking. Gerard didn't leave things to chance. The real attack was to make Scott deal with the fact of the dead boy, and Scott would have smelled him even if Lydia hadn't been driving. 

Like he smelled him right now. 

The boy smelled like he died afraid.

"I'd still know."

"' _The skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible_ ,'" Lydia quoted. She got it too; Gerard had planned to win whether they stopped here or not.

The quote was another way they've prepared. Scott had studied a particular secondhand copy of _The Art of War_ over the past year, treasured its lingering scent: the chemosignal of determination, traces from her fingers on the edges of the page.

Scott could smell the body.

"It's all a fucking echo house," Stiles muttered.

Again, Scott knew exactly what he meant. Gerard's greatest weapon was the past. It was what he was, come back to haunt them, over and over, inescapable.

Scott stared into the woods.

"' _A whole army may be robbed of its spirit; a commander-in-chief may be robbed of his presence of mind_ ,'" Lydia quoted again.

Right. This move by Gerard was, amongst other things, a mindfuck, meant to break them down. The only way Scott won was by staying in control of himself. An old habit, by this point. He hadn't hurt any of the hunters.

But that had been the easy part. 

He didn't want to go—abandon this boy to the ground.

He had to.

"Does anyone want to loop me in?"

Scott turned back to find Theo glaring at them. His tone was oddly… whiny. Childlike.

Still, Scott was relieved to see him unafraid, unharmed. He wanted him close. Skin-close. Tooth-close.

He didn't know what to say.

Stiles glared right back at Theo, his grip twisting tighter on the bat, though he didn't say anything either.

" _The Art of War_ ," Lydia explained, before Scott could figure out how to open his mouth.

"What about it?"

"It's an Argent favorite. One Argent in particular."

Scott was grateful Lydia was filling Theo in, so he could work on stretching his senses, the conversation next to him fading to insignificance. He studied the trees. The deer were unbothered, picking preylike through the undergrowth. The hunters had made it to the car. They needed to get back to their own. Scott knew that. Even if the hunters had already made their move, didn't intend on returning, it wasn't safe here. 

They needed to get to the hotel. 

They needed to leave.

But.

As Scott came back to himself, he realized Stiles and Lydia were talking low to each other, making potential plans on who to contact about the dead boy and when.

Theo, meanwhile, had gone to crouch by the body. Was studying it. Looming over it, unhindered by the mountain ash. 

Scott hated him there. The feeling lanced through him. He needed Theo away from the threat, back in the car where it was safe. He struggled with the urge to physically herd him into it instead of just asking him—and everyone—to go. 

He wouldn't let himself move until he could speak.

He couldn't speak because he wanted to—needed to—move.

He made himself stare at the woods.

They were so dark, the moon tidal and inescapable above him but hidden behind the trees.

 _Bang_.

At first, all Scott could smell was Lydia's blood. There was a gash on her forearm, abrupt as the noise. But in the next heartbeat, Scott could smell much more blood, from the dead boy.

And Theo.

Scott was beside him before he could think—and then he'd been thrown back.

Mountain ash.

The dead boy's blood had been mixed with mountain ash. Now, it was splattered all over the ground, and Theo, who was still next to the body. Which had exploded. There was no other word for it, the gashes in his chest now a chasm. 

The body had been cut in half by the force of the explosion. 

In the distance, Scott heard the herd of deer scatter, knew their eyes were wild with fear. Saliva flooded Scott's mouth, bitter with adrenaline.

A ragged, rattling breath.

Theo's.

There had been glass in the boy's body, buried with the ash and explosives. Now there were glass shards all over Theo's chest, _in_ him, all mixed up with his blood and the dead boy's and the mountain ash. Scott could see every particle of it, every drop of blood, every gash. All tinted red.

Theo was hurt.

Scott wanted to touch him.

He couldn't.

Lydia and Stiles joined them. It felt like it had taken them hours to arrive, but it had probably been only seconds. Scott tensed as Stiles came to stand by Theo, ready to step in between them. But Stiles only sighed, rubbing his eyebrow as he bent down to help Theo to his feet, sounding more tired than angry as he said, "You are the dumbest ass. What part of 'no one touch the body' was hard for you?"

Theo didn't reply. As soon as he was standing, he leaned away from Stiles' hands.

Lydia's blood flooded Scott's senses again—she was holding the gash on her arm, quiet and pale but determined.

Scott needed to focus. "Everyone in the car."

It would be safer there.

"If you get Lydia, I've got Theo," Stiles offered.

Scott took the driver's seat this time—needed to be in it. Lydia slid in next to him, while Stiles and Theo shuffled into the back seat. 

It was a little better once they were all in the car, where it smelled like the pack and the doors closed all around them, a wall between them and danger. Scott kept a window open to listen for threats, but it was still easier to concentrate as Stiles handed him one of the first aid kits. He cleaned and dressed Lydia's cut on autopilot. The gash was from a shard of glass, bled like anything from a blade, but it hadn't cut very deeply, and it was easy enough to close. Lydia was patient, relaxed slightly as Scott pulled her pain.

He wished he could be pulling Theo's too. 

Stiles was rummaging through his own first aid kit for a pair of tweezers, grumbling, "What the fuck were you even doing?"

"Close. Its eyes."

" _His_ eyes," Lydia corrected sharply.

"His," Theo echoed. His breaths were uneven. Short. Glass in his lungs.

As soon as Lydia's cut was cleaned and bandaged, some of her pain gone, Scott got the car going. They all needed to be as far away from that dangerous place as possible. He couldn't stop checking for Theo's face in the rearview mirror. His heart was strong and it didn't sound like his lungs were in danger of collapsing, but his breath was weak, skin pale and sweaty. 

The worst part was, under the ash and the blood and the pain, Theo smelled like _nothing_ —like he was… empty, like he wasn't tamping down his chemosignals but actually had none to put out.

It smelled like death.

Scott couldn't stand it.

"Make sure you get the shards from his lungs first," he told Stiles. 

"No worries, I got it."

"Sub—" Theo rasped.

Scott zeroed in on what Theo meant immediately: a jagged piece of glass lodged perilously close to the subclavian artery near his shoulder. He swore he could hear that artery specifically, how vulnerable it was, its rapid patter. "Stiles, get the one high up on the left, and make sure you _don't_ let the glass slip at all to the side as you do."

"Okay, uh—if it's that delicate a procedure, do you wanna pull over for a second?"

" _No_." Scott refused to slow down, let them be vulnerable, for one second. He walked Stiles through taking the shard out.

"Eyes on the road, Scott," Lydia ordered him at one point. Distracting.

After that first tricky bit of glass, the others that Stiles took out came easier—big pieces, jagging horribly into Theo's chest but simple to remove. There were other smalls bits of glass, and the mountain ash had been blasted right into Theo's skin, but Scott knew from experience that his body would push everything out as long as there wasn't a force continuously holding it in.

It was exhausting, though, especially when you'd already been wounded. Scott could hear Theo's breathing easing, his lungs knitting back together, but he was still covered in ash and blood. 

There were so many cuts all over him, leaving him hobbled. Weakened.

Under that, still nothing. His face was slack. Scott didn't understand it and he wanted to fix it and he couldn't _abide_ it. He wanted to shake Theo, roar until Theo came back to himself—to Scott.

Theo started to shiver. 

Scott immediately rolled the window up until it was nothing but a tiny crack, but it wasn't that cold out. It was Theo's body, the energy expended from healing himself, sapping what would normally keep him warm. Scott wanted to keep him pinned in his arms. He wanted to lick all the blood off him. He wanted to taste it.

"Scott, focus on the road!" Lydia urged. "Stiles, will you please do something?"

"Um, okay, uh—hey, is it cool if I—"

"Yes! Quickly, please, before we all crash and die."

Stiles was already turning in his seat, squirming over the back of it to reach something in the trunk. He came back with a blanket that smelled heavily of Lydia, and thrust it, awkwardly, at Theo. "Here."

Theo's expression didn't change, but his heart thumped—too fast, like fear. He leaned away from Stiles' hands. "Not. Required."

Stiles made an impatient noise, which had Scott tensing further. Stiles' tone, however, was only conciliatory as he said, "Come on, man, you're obviously cold. It's fine. Just take it. We're all really good at getting bloodstains out of stuff these days. Plus, you'll need it anyway when we get to the hotel, so no one sees you looking like a cheese grater."

"No. Temperature. Stabilizing."

"For fuck's _sake_ , Theo," Stiles huffed, writhing in his seat like he might find the right thing to say that way.

Theo stayed deathly still next to him.

Scott opened his mouth to ask Theo—to _order_ him—to be warm. He'd haul him down to the ground and make him, if necessary.

Then, Stiles said, much quieter, "Look, after the _nogitsune_ I was constantly cold, okay? It's fine. Happens to the best of us. You don't have to be weird about it."

"No." Theo was still staring straight ahead. 

Empty.

"Scott! Please don't break my car!"

Scott realized his grip on the steering wheel was tight enough to make it creak. He forced it to loosen.

"Scott," Lydia repeated, "you need to let me drive."

" _No_."

Scott hated everything about that idea: stopping the car when there was danger outside, breaking the seal of the car's protection, getting out of it when his pack was inside and Theo was _hurt_ inside it, giving up control. Every single bit of it was intolerable.

"You're extremely distracted right now, and you're speeding, and you need to let me drive."

Scott wasn't distracted. He was hyper-focused, painfully aware of everything that was terrible about letting someone else drive right now. "You're hurt."

"I have a minor injury that you've already tended to. Scott, your eyes are glowing. You need to let someone else drive and concentrate on calming down. Just take a deep breath. Here, breathe with me. Like this."

He couldn't unhear her, with his senses on high alert. 

In. Out. In. Out. 

The familiar Lydia-rhythm.

Fuck.

Everything about her suggestion _felt_ like a terrible idea, and Lydia had been strange and distant and inscrutable for a while now. But he did trust her to stay calm in a stressful situation.

He definitely trusted her to come up with the most logical thing to do. 

Scott made himself pull over.

+++

By the time they arrived at the hotel, Scott had checked himself a little, his eyes human brown. He didn't like the idea of them leaving the car at _all_ , but he could at least see that idea for the werewolf stupidity it was—same as the urge to stalk in circles between Lydia, as she checked them all in at the front desk, and Stiles and Theo, waiting outside where Theo's injuries would be less noticeable. Thankfully, the place they were staying at was a series of cabins, so they didn't need to worry about trekking through the hallways with Theo huddled under a blanket.

They were staying in a cabin that had been split into two separate suites. Lydia handed him the key to the suite he'd share with Theo, and then stayed at the front desk to finish up while Stiles accompanied him and Theo to the cabin. 

Theo was unsteady on his feet, exhausted and still injured, but he was stiff whenever Stiles tried to touch him. Scott didn't like it either. Stiles was radiating frustration, tense and frenetic. It felt like danger. 

Once they were in the suite, Stiles helped Theo stumble into the shower, where he stood blinking, wide eyed, unresisting as Stiles took the blanket back.

As he did, Scott's nose was flooded with the scent of blood. It dripped down into his mouth, coated it like fat.

Stiles gestured at Theo's shirt, which was shredded to pieces and covered in mountain ash. "You want help with that?"

"No." Theo's gaze flickered at him, then away. "I'm undamaged."

His voice was hollow.

Stiles' eyebrows shot up. "Ooookay. Not even gonna touch that one. Scott—"

"I've got him," Scott growled, and then he couldn't stop, low and constant, deep in his throat. Theo was hunched in the tub, breath uneasy, and Scott didn't want anyone else there—wanted Theo to himself. Theo was cornered. Injured.

He herded Stiles to the door.

Only there did he realize how _insane_ he was being again. "God, Stiles, sorry. And thank you. For helping."

Even as he said it, he was blocking the doorway. Making sure Stiles didn't come back inside.

"S'all right, dude." Stiles sounded exhausted himself. "Not my first werewolf rodeo, and that whole thing was stupendously shitty."

"It really was."

"Lydia back yet?"

Scott could hear her. "Yeah."

"Great. I'm gonna go check on her, but—"

"It's fine. I've got Theo."

"Right." Stiles turned to go, his shoulders sloping tiredly—but then he stopped. Fidgeted. Turned. His face was shadowed, his eyes dark and serious as he said, "I mean it, Scott. You know that, don't you? It's all right. Or, it will be. Whatever, uh, this is… it'll be all right."

Scott wasn't sure what he meant. Theo's injuries? Gerard's attack? The haze of the waxing moon? The first one was the biggest concern. He could hear Theo's heartbeat. He was alone.

"Okay," Scott said, because he had to say something. "Thanks again. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Stiles slapped him on the shoulder, grabbing, and then he was gone.

+++

Theo was still standing doll-like in the tub when Scott came back, shivering. Scott got the water going quickly. He hated that Theo was cold.

"Is the temperature okay?"

Theo only stared. 

Scott had no idea what to do. Theo was in some sort of fugue, clearly related to being hit with the glass and mountain ash, and he still smelled so _blank_.

His lips were pale. Scott wanted to bite them. He wanted them red, blood-warm.

Glass fragments tumbled irregularly into the tub. Theo's shirt was in tatters, torn from the glass and the nearness of the explosion, its last fraying edges coming apart under the spray. It hung on either side of him, ash worn into its fibers, flattening wetly. His jeans were getting soaked too, turning dark and clinging under the water. 

"Can you get the shirt off?" The glass and ash were slowly making their way out of Theo's skin, but the shirt was ruined, covered in blood and indelible ash. They needed to get rid of it.

Theo blinked at him.

The urge to use his Alpha voice built in Scott's throat like a growl, but Theo hadn't consented and didn't pose any threat. Scott made himself swallow it down, want settling hot in his belly. 

Thankfully, Theo did seem to understand, and his wounds had healed enough that he could move—if slowly.

He was so slow right now. If he ran, Scott could hunt him down so easily. 

Pin him in the dirt.

Scott made himself turn away.

There were extra trash bags under the sink. Scott grabbed one, punctured it with his claws and had to grab another. He held that one out for the shirt as Theo slowly, carefully pulled it off, staring, fanged, all the while, at the unguarded expanse of Theo's back as he turned. His skin looked so soft. Scott could tear it so easily, shred the rippling muscle underneath, meat under his claws.

The second the shirt plopped wetly into the trash bag, Scott ran from the bathroom.

As he came to the little kitchenette, Scott realized he could hear Stiles and Lydia, just a wall away.

They were having sex—noisy, frantic, relieved.

Scott tried not to listen. He balled up the trash bag and shoved it by his duffel bag; the sooner he was back by the shower, the sooner the running water would dampen the sound.

But by his duffel, he heard something else.

It was Theo, still in the shower, muttering, "Just tell me what you fucking _want_."

Not blank anymore. Tense. Frightened.

Scott hurried back.

What he found made the back of his hair prickle in alarm. Theo was pressed up against the side of the shower. He'd snapped out of the haze he was in, it seemed, still hunched but very alert as he huddled against the wall—as if there were someone there he was afraid of, trying to hide from. Like someone—something—was hunting him.

The only one here was Scott.

Scott couldn't afford to say what he wanted from Theo. "Are you okay?"

Theo looked at him like he'd forgotten Scott was there. "What?"

"Are you okay?" Scott repeated.

Theo's expression twisted. "What do you care?" 

"I care."

Another ugly Theo-truth. Scott had always cared about him—too much, the wrong way.

Even now, his fangs pressed at his gums.

"You shouldn't. You can't. How can you?"

Scott remembered coming back, roaring, his eyes already opened because they'd never closed.

Theo had tried to close the dead boy's eyes, even when he'd probably known it would hurt him.

He wasn't the same person he'd been.

Scott wanted to touch him so badly.

"I forgive you. I did a long time ago."

Theo lunged, claws out.

When he'd killed Scott, Scott had already been systematically separated from his pack and the strength it gave him for weeks, poisoned by wolfsbane, and nearly beaten to death by Liam. 

But he was in perfect health now.

Scott felt the blow of the mountain ash coming near him, growling at the blinding wall of it—but it was Theo who stumbled back until he hit the wall of the shower again. He wouldn't be able to touch Scott either, Scott realized—at least not until the mountain ash had all been washed away, repelled not by his own allergy to mountain ash, but by Scott's.

But Theo's claws had never been his most dangerous weapon. His eyes darkened. "I've hurt people. Killed them. I killed _you_."

"I remember."

"I shredded your lungs because I wanted you to choke to death."

Because they'd both had asthma. Theo knew what it was like to suffocate. "I know."

"Because you'd made me feel less afraid, a long time ago. I wanted to hurt you for that."

"I know, Theo."

"Is that all you have to say to me?"

"What else do you want me to say?"

Theo's expression was so ragged. Furious. Miserable. "I don't _know_."

Familiar.

Scott dug his claws into his palms so he didn't dig them in anywhere else.

Everything was familiar, all tumbled together, a blurred cycle repeating.

All at once, it was too much, all of it: the body in the woods, the boy who'd died alone and afraid, the boy Scott had made himself abandon, Theo hurt and hurting, and Scott couldn't help him, and everything happening so fucking fast. Scott had all this power under his skin and all did was put blood on his hands, red and awful as his eyes. He couldn't unsee all of Theo's vulnerable places where teeth might sink in and he couldn't unhear his human friends tactile in love and he couldn't touch Theo and he was _drooling_ , fanged, at the smell of him, under all that blood, at the way Theo looked at him, preylike, like Scott would consume him, chew him up in his monstrous jaws.

And this was what Scott had died for. This was what Theo had tried to take from him.

Scott wished he had. It was a curse, deep down. That was all it had ever been.

Black ash swirled down the drain. 

Scott needed to leave before it was all gone. Before he could touch. Hurt.

At least he'd had practice. Abandoning Theo.

"Scott?" Theo asked, as Scott made himself turn away.

His voice was so small, under the water. 

Scott hated it. Wanted to say something.

But he couldn't.

Muted.

+++

In the car, Scott dreamed of dying.

Theo pushing him down onto the stairs—his claws sinking _deep_ , twisting and shredding Scott's chest.

Searing pain.

Sinking down, deeper and deeper, darkness all around him.

Theo above him. Ragged. Furious. Miserable.

 _But I could have helped you,_ Scott thought but couldn't say, no air left. _I could have showed you how._


End file.
